


Prisoner 6402

by cferre



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Post-Hogwarts, Third Generation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-23
Updated: 2018-11-26
Packaged: 2019-07-01 13:15:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15774834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cferre/pseuds/cferre
Summary: In July 2027, a terrible murder moves both the magical community and the Muggle community. James Sirius Potter has been found guilty by the Muggle judicial system and now he has to be tried for his own.





	1. News clippings

 

 

Three years ago the brutal murder that ended the life of the entire Marks family took place. Throughout the morning family members, friends, neighbors and different people have been coming to Downing Street to leave candles and memories in their memory. The number 110 of Downing Street has become, once again, an altar to let them know that they are still present in us.

_April Moodie;_

_Metro, July 25, 2029_

  _The service in remembrance for the Marks family has been in the quiet and the old parish of St. Dunstan, one of the first parishes in London that today has been closed to the public and cancelled all visits._

_Journalists and television cameras have been forced to stay at least ten meters away because the family has asked for privacy and respect. Behind the fences, next to us, many people from different parts of London have gathered to bring them, although from afar, warmth and support to the Marks family._

_At the exit, before getting into the car, they stopped a few minutes to thank all the support they still receive._

_Lana Walton;_

_Evening Standard, July 25, 2029_

  _The Marks family was found dead three years ago in their own home. It had been days since anyone knew absolutely anything about any of them when the neighbors began to worry and decided to call the police. They did not go to work, the children were missing classes, they did not answer the phone, they did not answer the messages, the dog had stopped going for a walk, the blinds were not raised or lowered, they were always in the same position, the light wasn’t switch on at night or off when they went to sleep, there was no noise from inside. It was as if they had disappeared suddenly. The big surprise came when the door was thrown to the ground._

_Of all the theories that were on the table, this was the least desired of all. They had been brutally murdered._

_Robert Mackenzie;_

_I, July 25, 2029_

   _T_ _he murderer of the Marks family, all Muggles, has been behind bars for three years. Finally, and after many conversations between the Muggle Prime Minister and the Prime Minister of the Magic World, the murderer has passed to the aurors; until now he was in a high security muggle prison._

_In the Muggle world, the investigation was finalized a year ago and a few months ago there was a final sentence declaring him guilty and with a penalty of life imprisonment, the lawyer managed to save him, with his clever plea, from the death penalty. This has made it easier for him to be transferred to Azkaban._

_Until now the investigation by the aurors and the scientific teams of the Ministry had been rendered impotent by the impossibility of not being able to do anything. The investigation was at rest. Now, with the murderer locked up and under his surveillance, they can resume the investigation._

_Rose Weasley;_

_The Daily Prophet, July 29, 2029_

  _Why did he do it? How he do it? These are the main questions that come to mind when we think about the murder of the Marks family. Another question that comes to mind is if he is a monster or if he is crazy, we do not conceive that a person in his right mind can kill children in cold-blooded, babies. We also wonder if he repents, if he can sleep at night, if the ghosts chase him. We wonder what has happened so that person we knew so well, everyone, has done this atrocity. And many of us hope that he was under the influence of the Imperius curse._

_For now, we have to wait. There is no answer to any of these questions. The Muggle authorities and the Muggle police have transferred all the information they have about the case to the aurors. We hope little by little to begin to have information and, above all, answers._

_Rose Weasley_

_The Daily Prophet, July 31, 2029_

  _Finally the transfer has taken place; James Sirius Potter, the murderer of the Marks family, is in Azkaban. The transfer occurred very early this morning, before the sun had awakened._

_For a few days there has been a question that has haunted my mind, how could he been in Muggle prison so long and not escaped? Muggle prisons are not trained to retain wizards with the ability to appear._

_Rose Weasley_

_The Daily Prophet, August 5, 2029_

  _We have known, exclusively, who will be in charge of defending the murderer of the Marks family, James Sirius Potter. His lawyer will be the prestigious Albus Severus Potter, his little brother._

_Rose Weasley_

_The Daily Prophet, August 10, 2029_

 

 


	2. Strained relations

 

The night was cold and dark. The stars sparkled much farther from the earth than other times. There was no wind, and the shadows of the trees, projecting on the earth with persistent immobility, had something sinister and terrifying.

A tear slid down Ginny Weasley's cheek. She noticed it coming down her cheek and felt, too, as others prepared to leave. She had just read Rose Weasley's last article about his oldest son.

During these three years she had read many articles, both Muggles and her own world, and during these three years they had described his eldest son so many things that she had the feeling that she had stopped meeting him. It had been said of his son that he was an inhuman demon, that he was the real victim and that he was actually under the influence of the Imperius curse, an outstanding student who had been spoiled, a lost teenager influenced by the name of his namesake Sirius Black, even though Sirius Black was proven innocent, he likes animals, he was a great Quidditch player, he was very handsome, he had enviable brown skin, very expressive eyes, he has brown eyes, that has green eyes, that has brown hair and that also has it black, that is very high, that is not so high, that he dress very well, that he dress with the muggle style because he tried to run away, that he is very smart, that he is very good at his job, is a liar, is faking, was expelled from Hogwarts, was graduated with the best grades of his promotion, is violent, is a kind person, has a beautiful smile, he's crazy, he's a brutal killer.

She did not remember her son like that. She remembered a smiling child, even a child with big brown eyes full of life and illusion, an amorous child, a child too shy with girls to be able to articulate a sentence of more than four words or not to commit an awkwardness, boy with dark brown hair always dishevelled and with dread of combing his hair, a boy who always came home with his knees scraped and with wounds on his palms from playing in the street and falling, a boy who loves quidditch who couldn’t be on the ground for more than five minutes, a child who could devour a book in one afternoon, a child who protected his little sister from an ant if needed and able to do anything for her, a boy who loved to annoy his little brother and make him bother for anything and also able to get into a fight with five kids older than him for his brother, a mischievous child for whom they had to send them owls as twice a week from Hogwarts, a boy with so many friends who never finished saying goodbye when he returned from Hogwarts every summer, a boy who fell asleep on the sofa waiting for her to come home from work.

Who was that James Sirius Potter that the newspapers talked so much about? It could not be her son, but the photo, the boy of the photo was her son. She did not understand anything.

“Mom you have to stop reading this.” Lily, who has just entered the room, took the newspaper from her mother's hands and wrinkled it between her hands.

“Have you read what she says about James?”

“I stopped reading it years ago. It makes me want to hit Rose, how can she write like that of her cousin.” She spat with suppressed rage. She gripped the newspaper paper ball in his hands.” She has turned James into a horror novel character.”

“My child, my poor child in Azkaban.” Ginny lamented with a completely lost look.

Ginny might not recognize her son when they talked about him in the newspaper, but Lily did not recognize her mother. She was no longer that strong woman; she was not a shadow of her. She sat consumed on the sofa while reading the articles about James.

Lily went to her mother and bent down so that they could be at the same height and see her in the eyes, she caressed her hands delicately despite not receiving an answer from her, she did not want to look at her with sorrow, but so she did, she ended up hugging her even though she was not reciprocated.

The day they had arrested James, not only had she lost his older brother, she had also lost his mother.

Lily stayed in that position for a few long minutes, until they heard the front door. Albus or his father had returned home, or maybe both. Lily got up and left the room but not before giving one last look to her mother, had not moved a bit. With a sad look she moved towards the main entrance. Albus had returned home.

“Have you seen him? Have you seen James?”

“Hello brother, how are you, I'm glad to see you, you want us to go for a drink like we do every Friday.” He unbuckled the tie of his tie. When he finished Hogwarts he swore to himself that he would never, in his life, wear a tie again.

“I'm serious.” Lily folded her arms. She did not want to joke and much less wanted his brother's jokes where he was the only who laugh at.

“Give me a break, I've had a very hard day”. He unbuttoned the first buttons of his shirt and took off his shoes leaving them lying next to the door in any way.

“Albus, please.” Lily begged. She took his arm. “I need to know, Rose has rewritten one of her articles.”

“Why do you keep reading that?”

“It was not me!” Lily exasperated, released Albus's arm. “It was mom. When I came back from work I found her crying hugging a picture of James from the newspaper.”

“I'll talk to Rose.” He promised his little sister.

“If she do not stop writing this shit, I'm going to hit her. And now tell me, you've seen James.”

Albus shook his head.

"I picked up everything the muggles had and I phoned the muggle lawyer James had.” Albus went by Lily's side in the direction of the kitchen, needed something to drink, needed alcohol. “I never had such a hard day like this before, and there were many days when I considered them hard.”

“And what did he say? What does it say on the papers? When will you see James? When will he leave Azkaban?”

“Breath Lily.” Albus smiled. He opened a can of beer and gave Lily another one. Then he would buy a package to his father.

“I miss him. It does not help me to go to see him and that a crystal separates us. I need to touch him, I need to hug him, to get up and tell me how ugly I am when I get up.” Lily smiled wistfully. “That he wakes me up in the middle of the night because the house burns and that is a lie.” She had lowered his eyes to the beer can.

“Yes, what a bastard we have for brother.”

“Do you believe in him? Do you think he is innocent?” She raised it again. She was staring Albus in the eye. There was so much strength in her eyes that it hurt and intimidated.

“My heart will always believe in James, but I do not know.”

“How? Is that a yes or a no?” Lily was confused.

“It's too early to say anything. I have to read everything, study it, do interviews that will make the wounds deeper because they are not closed, listen to the muggle trial recording. There's a lot of work ahead, Lily.” He tried to explain himself.

For Lily this wasn’t a valid answer.

“I's your brother, how can you say this.” She pressed the tin between his hands, she dented it, leaving the shape of her fingertips engraved.

“I'm a lawyer too, and I can not let the fact that he's my brother influence me because they'll eat him. The Muggle lawyer managed to save him from the death penalty and I do not think he believed he was innocent.” Albus gave his beer a long drag. He adored muggles and their alcoholic drinks.

“In a person you believe or do not believe.” Murmured Lily. She could not look Albus in the face, she could not understand how he had not said he believed in James without hesitation.

They remain silent, they look at each other, they do not say anything else. Lily was waiting for an apology from Albus and when she did not get it she left the beer can abruptly on the table and left the kitchen in direction to her room.

On the way she pass by, her room was the first door on the right. She reaches the end of the corridor and enters the last door, it was James' room. It was the same, nobody had touched anything at all. It smelled closed, she opened the window to ventilate a little.

Lily went to the bookshelf; her brother was a lover of reading, could read on any subject and was one of those people who unwittingly memorized paragraphs, dates and names. There was no free space for more books. In the first row and preventing some titles from being read, there was a picture, James dressed in his Quidditch uniform, James graduating, James with all the cousins, James and her alone, James with whom was his girlfriend before everything happened, James as a child with mom and dad. He had not changed much, he still had the same smile.

They had not known absolutely anything about James's girlfriend for a long time. She disappeared when he was arrested, she did not love him as much as she said. Lily turned that photograph around.

He went to the closet, opened both doors and checked James' clothes to find his favorite sweatshirt. It was black and two sizes bigger than his own, he liked that the sweatshirts were loose, he had a hood but he had removed the laces to adjust it, it had a pattern of a skull and underneath it had the word "St. Pauli "referring to the muggle football team of the German league. She hugged it, maybe she was imagining it but it still smelled like James, put it on, put on the hood and stretched out on James's bed, fell asleep a few minutes later.

 

***

 

Rose gets up with a huge smile, is ready to hug Albus, it was a long time since they had no talk for the last time and spend time together, catch up, tell each other how everything was going and remember old times. But Albus did not receive her with the same enthusiasm. He sat directly when he reached the table. Albus had a serious face, did not smile, had dark circles under his eyes and his expression was tired. His appearance was somewhat more careless compared to the pristine image that he offered when he went to work. Rose sat down, she was somewhat bewildered but she could smell where the shots were going. It was true that their relationship had changed since a few years ago.

“Thanks for coming.” He finally said. They had been silent for a few seconds that for Rose they had become eternal.

“I was really looking forward to seeing you. You have always been my favorite cousin.” She confessed, although Albus already knew, the whole family knew it. Like Dominique's favorite cousin, it had always been James. “I missed you. She grinned, reaching out to grab Albus by the arm. She embraced it with affection.

“I missed you to.” He admitted, although he was upset with her for her articles, he could not deny reality.

Albus was a person who liked coffee with four large spoons of sugar; no one in his family did or could not understand it. They assumed that it came from someone in the family. For her part, Rose put on two very small spoons that seemed to have no effect on the bitter taste of the drink.

“And well, what do you have for me, what do you have to tell me, explain me everything.”

“This question you must ask to everyone.” He grinned sideways. Rose laughed.

The cafeteria was muggle and was in one of the main streets of London, they always went to it and at the time they occupied the table was, always, half empty. Both agreed many years ago that this was the best coffee they had ever tasted. They were so used to seeing them sitting at that table next to the window that when they came, the question was not what they wanted, but the usual thing?

“How are you?” The tone in Rose's voice changed. It was no longer happy, it was more of concern, something insecure also for touching a topic like this so delicate. In his family it had become a taboo subject, as if James Sirius Potter had never existed and the Potters had had only two children.

"Well although everything would be better if James stayed in the muggle prison, it would be easier to visit him.” Silence. Albus fixed his gaze on his cousin with a frown and a look so serious that it froze anyone's blood. I had never looked at Rose that way. “Although I suppose you can tell us better.”

“What?” Rose was surprised for the question.

"Are you going to deny me that you have not already visited James in Azkaban?” He threw the newspaper of that morning on the table, it was open on the page where Rose's article was. “How can you be so cruel, Rose? How can you have so little heart and play like that with people's pain? You have sunk my mother in misery.”

“Albus, my job is to write articles, I research, I do interviews, I inform people and people now want this.” She pointed to his article. “They want to read about James. People are morbid and they like the most gruesome details. They are not interested in the facts, they do not care if James really killed that family or not, he could have sliced a dozen more necks and they would not care, what they want to know is if the reason was jealousy, if he slept with lady Marks or not, his favorite color, what perfume he wear, if he exercise in prison, how is his life there, as what was his life before, they want this.” She pointed to her article again.

“Many will say that the monster is James, but the real monster is you and the other journalists. I can not understand how you have sold this way your own cousin.” Albus handed herthe newspaper. “Stop writing about him or there will be consequences.”

“Are you threatening me?”

“No”. He shook his head. “I'm warning you. And I can assure you, this yes, that I would win. I doubt James told you all this.” Albus was very sure of himself, of his words and his victory. It was showed in his voice tone, in his gestures, in the position of his body.

“You can not censor me.” Rose attacked. She was furious.

"I'm not censoring you, I'm telling you that I can report you for crimes against the honor, both of James and the rest of our family.”

Rose laughed, it was a breath full of astonishment. She shook her head.

“James has not been able to get a better lawyer.”

“Leave my family alone and stop calling my mother. Nobody is going to offer you an interview to talk about James.” He warned her again before getting up. “Not to you, nor any other bloodsucker like you.”

“I just do my job, just like you do yours.” She reminded him.

“Well, I did not know you were the new Rita Skeeter, I thought you aspired to something else.” He shot straight into Rose's heart. “I invite.” He left the money on the table before leaving.

There were so many people at that moment in the street going from one place to another that nobody noticed how Albus disappeared in front of their noses.

 

***

 

_Among all the Death Eaters I quickly recognized James Sirius Potter. I never imagined that I would ever see that boy with whom I have shared so many years of my life locked in a cell in a high security prison. And much less, surrounded by Death Eaters._

_We all remember the little James Sirius Potter, we have all seen him in old photographs accompanying his parents in different public events or on the back of his mother celebrating the victories of the Holyhead Harpies._ _Now he is a tall man, with muscles marked by all the years that he has played Quidditch, short brown hair, he has lost that rebellious hair with which we met him at Hogwarts, he still has an alert and insightful look, the color of his eyes are brown, his skin has lost that tan that is so characteristic of him although he is still more dark than me, he has lost the mischievous and defiant smile that accompanied him at Hogwarts. No longer surrounded by an aura of good humor that made you want to get close to him. He is thinner, he looks tired, with dark circles under his eyes and something consumed. We could not see if he has tattoos or not, but he still has earrings in his ears, three on the left and two on the right._

_When James Sirius Potter discovers that we are looking at him, he simply closes the book he is reading and moves away from us. We try to follow him but we do not get it. Above the table he had left the book forgotten. He was reading The Origin of Tragedy by Nietzsche._

 

_Rose Weasley_

_The Daily Prophet, August 17, 2029_


End file.
